Street View banned from security bases

It seems Google may have removed images of military and security bases from its Street View service after realising some fell foul of the Official Secrets Act.

A spokesGoogles' claim that Street View "is only made up of images from public roads and so it's to be expected that buildings that anyone can see walking down the street may appear," was swiftly followed up with: “Our drivers are trained not to take photographs where this is prohibited by law, but if mistakes are made we will act quickly to remove the images."

The mistake appears to have been not have read the Official Secrets Act. And there are certainly plenty of buildings viewable from the road that may not be photographed.

Installations snapped by the Googlemobile included a Special Boat Service drop-in centre and the secretive SAS headquarters in Credenhill in Herefordshire which had never been photographed officially before.

In fact, according to the Mail, it had snapped virtually every top-secret Government eavesdropping centre and MI5 safe house across Britain.

Insecurity experts think terrorists could use the pictures to plan for attacks. The SAS base is thought to be particularly vulnerable to the fanciful, as Street View shows a full 180-degree panoramic view of the HQ's boundary, taken within the last six months.